


Nocturne

by Ratzinger



Series: Needle's Eye of Time [4]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Age Difference, Complicated Relationships, Delusions, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Height Differences, Intoxication, Kinks, Love/Hate, Magic, Porn With Psychoanalysis, Post-Books, Pre-Games, Talking To Dead People, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator, Unsolicited Mindreading, Xenophilia, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:15:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25262944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ratzinger/pseuds/Ratzinger
Summary: What was it that was more real about suffering than about happiness? Had she not wanted to become someone else tonight? To forget for a bit.And here, a fox from a ruthless fairy tale, whom a human girl had led in swallow circles, weaving her own notes into his music, heel and toe, spin and bow, at the end of the world.Soft laughter escaped the woman’s lips and flew off, into the night.
Relationships: Avallac'h | Crevan Espane aep Caomhan Macha/Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon
Series: Needle's Eye of Time [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655209
Comments: 17
Kudos: 62





	Nocturne

**Author's Note:**

> It started out as smut-practice. It grew branches of character exploration & psychoanalysis. It ended up as filthy indulgence.  
> It follows directly from "The Pied Piper of Night City" (cyberpunk crossover) in one possible turn of events where two characters with deep-running personal issues engage in fantasies. Feel free to yell at me.
> 
> As a sidenote: I very strongly prefer Avallac'h's temperament in the novels to the game's counterpart.  
> 

_Now let the day just slip away_ _  
so the dark night may watch over you  
Like a child asleep, so warm and deep  
you will find me there, waiting for you_

 _You don’t have to wonder why_ _  
Just come and dream the night with me_

She felt weightless and drowsy, despite having allowed herself to close her eyes only for a few seconds against a steel bird’s beam of light when it had come to survey the torn corpse of the giant apartment building. Ciri had stood on the elf’s feet and he had turned her away from the light, into the soft darkness that unfurled behind his tall form. Until the noise subsided, until prying eyes left them alone. White light had framed him, highlighting his contours and setting him between light and dark, where devils liked to play.

Where she had placed her feet on top of his boots, glistening red clung to earth. The Sage stood in it and held her above, away from the rivers of red.

_Light and dark. Good and evil._

Ciri had closed her eyes and sunk into the night.

The music had stopped.

It was quiet, apart from the city’s ambiance and the rain. Fingertips roamed the seams on her back, moving faintly, from the tips of her hair come loose to where cotton left the skin undefended. Everything felt subdued like she was diving underwater, and with every breath she became increasingly familiar with the owner of the arms around her. Somewhere above the surface, in the back of her waking mind, she could still hear the trills of the flute playing its song of storms to the billowing green clouds that ate at the tallest of steel spires before drenching the concrete earth with dusted glass. No matter what the Knowing One played, Ciri couldn’t stop hearing the longing melody she had heard him perform once in a key-nosed boat on Easnadh; a long, long time ago, it now seemed, in the beautiful world of terrible elves.

The rain kept falling.

She felt herself losing sense of time.

_Time does not matter._

Supple leather brushed against her jawline and she stirred against the momentary loss of warmth around her. Until a cool, inert wave spread across the base of her skull where long fingers had begun gently massaging, preparing her for magic that cocooned her mind in a feather blanket. It instilled calm and let the susurration of rain inside her, where always a fire or two raged. Aches and spasms too, which she hadn’t even been aware of, seemed to release their hold on her at the touch of knowing fingers. It felt incredibly soothing and unearned. At the thought of being given something for free another little fire kindled in her thoughts, but she was quickly persuaded to abandon the thought when another wave rolled across the taut muscles of her neck. A little rest, a little respite. It helped to remember that they were both drifters now; strangers at the end of the world.

In the warm, secure darkness of his shadow, Ciri barely registered when the thumbs of his hands began caressing her cheeks, pushing wisps of ashen hair out of her eyes. Carefully avoiding dipping against her scar, which often ached. Lately, he had begun suggesting he could heal it for her completely, though the woman was not sure if she should accept the offer. Looking at it reminded her of what was real.

Was it?

What was it that was more real about suffering than about happiness? Wouldn’t ridding herself of the harrowing reminder help her grow past it? Didn’t she want exactly that – to become someone else? She, who was singular and yet so often, in the abyss of space and time, no one. Ciri didn’t know; the spirit of truth often deceived her.

Whether due to the ministrations of magic or out of her own volition, or both, she felt her mind tarry at these thoughts, her muscles slackening further. It was difficult to resist the forgetfulness and dreams that tempted her when dark night could be this gentle.

Why focus on disturbing and unpleasant things now?

There was a tentative brush against her lips, a slow, circular, exploring motion. It quivered lightly, as if fearful of response. Ciri didn’t mind. Against the subdued tranquillity that had enveloped her, the touch felt distinct and singular, and she brushed her lips against its attentions. Lowering her lip, the tip of a thumb pushed forward against the wet inside, grazing her canine thoughtfully; and then made its way inside her mouth. An unexpected sweetness hit her tongue at the first slow stroke. Then again, but a little less; then less again, but it didn’t matter. If devils played here, then they were not the worst hosts.

A low sigh.

‘That’s good. That is very good, _luned._ ’

Her eyes snapped open.

Why did she look so startled?

He had always secretly adored her like this – so candid and accepting, letting him take care of her every need. Trusting him to bear her burden with her. Who else, if not him?

But it had been so long. He didn’t know if he felt the same way anymore. Had she not abandoned him, had she not let herself be ensnared... Yet, here she was. Where had she been hiding all this time? Didn’t she know how terribly he had missed her? Last time they had seen each other, those eyes had pleaded with him, full of tears and remorse; how they had hurt each other on that day.

‘Avallac’h?’

Brilliant emeralds, blown wide in alarm and bewilderment.

_You are mine. And I am yours._

He smiled bitterly.

‘What – what did you do?’

‘I gave you moon flower,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘It’s a mild anti-inflammatory and relaxant.’

Those accursed eyes widened inexorably. ‘No. No, no, this is not what I meant...’

 _You’re not a toad, my darling_ , he thought. _You’re the hope of the worlds._

She had grown a lot in the time she had been on the run from them. Sadly, she still hadn’t learned how to phrase her requests so no one could take advantage of them. Oh, he couldn’t stay mad at her for his own outlandish expectations. Circumstance, both ill and fortunate, had nurtured this human girl so she had learned to focus all her efforts into her unfaltering will power and nothing else. Through that she had to carve out every new day better than the last. No matter who her sword happened to cut down, no matter the millions whose fate she irrevocably altered in the process. He was far beyond moralising. Like tonight, for example. His little, dancing Swallow.

‘Stop hiding behind your witchcraft.’

 _Hiding?_ Did she not realise –

She kissed him.

There were many ways in which Ciri could have made her life tamer, more predictable, and less overwhelming. Unfortunately, these somehow never looked like the best options in the moments before she unleashed something.

His lips were dry and fine, and unmoving.

For a heartbeat, she tasted nothing but herself and the sour fruits of her temper and clenched the front of the elf’s robes hard enough to leave tiny abrasions on the ball of her thumb. She refused – absolutely refused! – to believe she may have, once again, fallen on her own sword. She had liked how unrestrained he had been around her, his face unusually enlivened when he had circled her in dance tonight. He, too, must have felt it – that same call of possibility that had moved Ciri’s heart like strong gusts of summer wind in the steppe. Or he wouldn’t have entertained her to a look of astonishment when she’d broken through the spell of his tender darkness. He wouldn’t have...

A glacial bucket of dread washed down her back.

_‘Who are you to dare abuse me with such miserable charity?’_

Who was she? What was she doing?

_Idiot._

_Idiot!_

In anger and humiliation, Ciri was about to retreat that very second, until she felt the sorcerer’s lips move against hers.

So, she stayed for a little longer.

Holding her jaw, the elf investigated her with a velvety touch. His answers, each increasingly demanding, ran a smarting hunger that sent writhing warmth pooling in her stomach as it sought satiation. Her heart raced, her frustration dissolving into cinders of surprise, whereas she had been hoping for the pleasure of vengeance. An “aerial vehicle” zoomed past in the rain, flashing bright lights and sounding its alarm. It fell on deaf ears. She felt his hands settle around her ribs, pulling her forward, again onto his feet. And up, higher, closer – from her vantage point to his.

Ciri sought air.

Small, even teeth briefly grazed the sensitive tissue, drawing her breath from her, and his taste and scent filled her mind with cotton wool. A fox from a ruthless fairy tale, whom a human girl had led in swallow circles, weaving her own notes into his music, heel and toe, spin and bow, at the end of the world. Strange, old, and powerful; and secretive. So secretive. So deceptive. Never one thing, always only who he chose to appear as from moment to moment. How could he expect this to be enough for her? Who was he to her, really? Who did she want him to be? Would he show her something real for once? When she tried him with the tip of her tongue, his arms moved more securely around her, locking her in, and Ciri sighed.

_I do not get lost._

_I do not!_

_And yet, I feel lost now._

The knowing smile an indigo-haired beauty had given her by the fires of protest and justice flashed in her mind’s eye – the heady excitement of losing herself to the blasphemy and electricity of sensation. As with Iskra, as with Mistle... in a different time and place. Because, at the end of the day that was what she liked to do, wasn’t it? In this alien time and place, a call she could not explain had drawn her away from the fires until she had found the sorcerer giving himself over to his music in the shadow of ruin, waiting. Much like he had once waited on the shore of a green lake, smooth as a mirror, underneath a bird cherry blossom. Effortless and exciting were the shadows of the Night City – one of which had waited for her to bring the moments destiny was made of to him and had proceeded to watch her lose herself in them. In secret, with only the elf’s own eyes to witness it.

Ciri felt heat rising to her cheeks.

_Why do you continue to allow yourself to become ensnared, stupid?_

He stepped forward on instinct when she tried pulling away, carrying her on his feet effortlessly like a doll. Ciri caught a glimpse of the look in his unusual aquamarines. It brought her to a halt. Had it been anger, mockery, or sadness, she would have understood, because she had felt and seen all of these in him. Not, however, this haunted, ardent desire – this greed – with which the elf watched her now. It made her wonder whose shoes she was walking in tonight, and if she could fill them.

And it frightened her.

‘Where are you going?’ he whispered when she finally managed to take a shaky step back.

‘Away. Or... I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, does it?’ she managed an unsure laugh, attempting to compose herself and indicating to the marred luxury of the place. ‘Or is this to be our new home, or what?’

He gave her another one of his strange looks.

Well, let him. It was all he ever did, anyway.

Ciri swallowed nervously against his taste. She needed to clear her head; this wasn’t...

Blood pounded in his ears.

In a stream of flickering neon light, Crevan saw green eyes studying him, growing ever more distant by the second. Her breath, slightly sour under the sweet notes of the physalis liqueur, lingered against his tongue and he felt very raw.

‘It’s alright!’ he called after her retreating form.

That made her stop.

He licked his lip; a small bruise. No matter. But where had all that impromptu joy disappeared to? Obstinately, she avoided looking him in the eyes when he drew near. How adorable she was, he thought; twilight lent her a beautiful sense of vulnerability that he so often chose to overlook. Uncertain, yet fierce; defiant against her own emotions to the last. Against feeling a little lost. He could understand that. Truthfully, he felt a little lost too at the moment.

It was only natural for her to feel lonely in this world – in all the worlds – despite making acquaintances easily. _Acquaintances; nothing more._ The worship of the unknowing could not survive when days slipped away and she had to return to the eternal night. When her hair was pulled by the stars again. How could they understand her – her story was outlandish and out of this world, and people saw her only for who she became to them. Yet, Crevan had known her longer than she had known herself. He and his people were of the same eternal night that called to her at the end of the day.

He lifted his hand to the nape of her neck, brushing her ashen hair, but the girl flinched and there was no laughter in her anymore.

_Why are you hiding, little Swallow? Do you think, perhaps, that I deceived you somehow? Do you think my witchcraft has made this happen? Oh, sweet girl, if only you knew._

‘What is alright?’ she asked.

Was she scared of him? Ridiculous; she didn’t have to be afraid. He was not angry; no-no! How could he be? She had returned to him. She had found him, as destiny desired.

‘It’s alright to seek comfort,’ he repeated slowly, tasting each word as if trying them for the first time. ‘I forgive you.’

The elf witnessed her shoulders tense and a switch flick before she reversed course and cut at him with her deadly emeralds. The oscillation was so abrupt he took a full step back, noting with delay the Force that had jumped to his fingertips.

‘Have I asked for your forgiveness?’ she exploded. ‘What would I have to ask it for!? For letting you play with me? For responding? I don’t know if you are aware, but it takes two!’

His eyes narrowed and a cruel smile broke on his handsome face at the impending rupture he had invited and, somewhere deep inside his soul, pleaded for.

_How we hurt each other on that day, Lara; how unforgiving and unforgivably stupid I was._

The girl leaned as close up to him as possible without touching, exuding heat and fury, crackling like ball lightning, and whispered: ‘You want me; and you cannot stand it.’

Crevan had temporarily lost track of himself in what followed.

He remembered that what she had told him she had said with such offensive bluntness, such ignorant presumption, self-importance, and arrogance as if only she had been privy to the childishly obvious, and that he, a Knowing One, a scientist, an artist, a musician and a poet, and the voice of her miserable destiny, could not have possibly understood. That at the heart of it all, everything seemed to come down to the banal matter of irrational, irresistible desire that trampled under its feet the good, the beautiful and the right, and spat on faith, hope, and love only to be sated there and then. That he wanted what he was promised, that despite everything, he wanted her, and so much more. That at wanting all this, he was as lowly as the creature due to whose selfish whims elves, futures, and worlds burned.

He remembered that he had wanted to gouge out the beautiful eyes in her face. And that he could not help seeing red.

When Crevan came to it was to the sound of his own name. An untidy sound, but not yet the prayer he desired it to be. Not yet uttered with awareness of what she tempted him with. He looked at her from above, to monitor the swirl of emotions that coloured her features. Her unfortunate, mesmerising features that were dear to his dark heart.

_We both have fantasies that hide behind our lies._

It distracted him, the look of her in his hands – he could do anything with her – and, displaying her special swiftness she used it. He felt fingers hook in his hair and deliver a maximally painful punishment. Crevan howled. How nasty, unruly, and underhanded she was: like her callous ancestor; not at all like the princess she was born to be. Zireael cried out when he squeezed her wrists in retribution, sealing them above her head with a command, and the elf greedily swallowed the sound off her lips.

_Do yours play with mine? Only for tonight, let’s say?_

Her chest moved against his like the tide then and, against charred wall, he held her captive. Oh, she was furious with him, and rightly so. Though she was not entirely innocent herself. Had she wished so, she could have run from him even now. But with her indulgent thoughts laid bare and her lidded eyes on the kitsch murals above, his pupil’s mouth fell open, gasping for the pittance of air he generously allowed when he focused on tearing whimpers from her as from a beloved flute – with a torment of kisses left in ashen hair, against a slender, white neck.

_Is this how you imagine it? When you follow my music. When you say you hate it._

Weaving the silvery tresses around his fist, he yanked, and she bent against him like a spring branch, a cherry blossom. Young flesh tightened like a bow string and blood rushed under pale skin in red blooms, flushing where it would bruise later. Her heart beat furiously against the stroke of his tongue.

_Not everything is as pretty as it looks; not everything. You wish I indulged myself. Do you know what that means?_

So close, so small. So striking in her choice agony. Wanting without knowing, giving without thinking, taking _everything_ – without mercy to him, or herself. Oh, the indestructible optimism of youth! With his palms clasped around her head, Crevan taught his baby midnight what was at the heart of him and her: however much she gave, it would never be enough for him; whatever he did for her, she would never forgive him. Was this any way to live?

_Will we play together, O Swallow?_

He let his hands wander under her layers, stroking and caressing taut flesh which, though roughened with scars, remained so impossibly soft and responsive he couldn't stifle a violent groan and wedged his knee in-between her legs. The girl cursed vilely and the elf kissed the tip of her nose in delight. What would it have gained the Sage to hide his perversion in this god-forsaken world? From whom exactly? Why bother? Lifting the human girl on his knee and causing sweet frictions, he offered her a chance to use him and take some more from him as he watched. Instead, she stiffened in response to his avarice and held her own admirably against the shudders his charged touch was designed to bring on. Oh, was something the matter for his lustful little _dh’oine_?

'Go on. Move a little.'

Gradually, he felt her starting to offer resistance to his grasp and stared at her furiously.

‘What happened to the “you”,’ she breathed, ‘from the good old days?’

The elf bit down on her neck, smothering her cry with his hand.

_How can I disarm you?_

‘It’s “You”, not the informal “you”,’ he reprimanded her softly in Ellylon. ‘Be polite.’

Her fingers scraped paint from the wall above.

_How can I make you accept me?_

‘Does my playing not please you?’ he murmured. ‘Does it not please you to know that you have my undivided attention?’

And then it was his turn.

Crevan’s breath hitched in his throat; his eyelids drooped. A small, pink tongue wandered against the inside of his palm. With strength at first, with a hint of teeth, until he gave it more leeway to wander. Then carefully and with thought behind its actions, drawing small fine lines of lightning along the creases of his palm and tasting him, circling gently against the ball of his thumb.

Bottomless green pupils stared at him defiantly. They arrested him on the crumbling edge of the pool of yearning that had been filling up drop by drop ever since insolent, intoxicated eyes had feigned apology for making a mess of things and left him, laughing, when the woman who lived inside their depths had responded to a call of happiness he could not compete with. Until he had given in what felt like centuries after the fact; until he had gone after his lady of the lake.

Avallac’h wavered on the edge, and fell in.

Impulse propelled her and need ground the grains of fear and hope to the raging of an excited heart in her throat. When the Sage’s hands had wrapped around her face with inhuman strength and her back had hit the wall, Ciri had considered leaping, as foul memories had returned: of hands like steel-pinchers, capable of both good and great evil. Yet how exactly had it been her fault this time? And now... now she tasted Power on his hands, at once bewildered by the sensation and amused at the elf’s own reaction: he trembled against her. Absolutely nothing seemed to line up tonight.

_Only blasphemy and madness in the shards of broken mirrors._

Avallac’h hadn’t even noticed when the looking glass broke, but she bet it hadn’t been made 700 years ago either.

Closing her eyes as he shifted his palm so she could slide her tongue in-between his fingers, she felt his warm, uneven breath hit her cheek and wished above all for him to feel exactly how he made her feel – addicted and overwhelmed. She could not command magic like he did, but she would make it fair, damn it! Therefore, when he suddenly pulled away from her and set her back on her feet, Ciri didn’t know what to think, say, or do. Everything was changing too quickly.

The elf gave her a playful look.

‘A sorcerer’s hands, O Swallow, are their most prized property; after their mind,’ he said. ‘Through them, he becomes a bridge between Chaos and Reality – a shield or a sword, if you like, or anything else he can only imagine. They are very sensitive; I ask you to tread with care.’

‘Figures,’ she muttered, burning up at the memory of having suckled on long fingers, as if under a spell.

He raised an eyebrow, and she had to make an effort to not look like she cared.

‘Then do not use them to restrain me like this!’ she continued. ‘I do not appreciate being muzzled like a mule.’ Listing the least of his offences as if it were the worst; well, she didn’t have the entire god damn list ready anyhow.

‘You’re right. Often you say very many interesting things I would just hate to miss. Before you act in most peculiar ways.’

She stared at his mouth, its edges darkened by her teeth marks – a mouth she often wanted to punch. A mouth she wanted to press against herself.

‘I’ve found that a little bit of restraint, while sometimes simply necessary, is even more often sweet,’ he eyed her with a secret smile. ‘Perhaps you’ll learn it too one day.’

Ciri reached out, eager to continue on the path of madness until it lasted. She wrapped her arms around his neck, lifted a thigh and placed it on his hip to pull him toward her, and she saw shadows move behind his eyes at that, but in the end, the elf did not react. Only watched her, breathing deeply and evenly. The contrast to less than a minute ago was so incredible that the woman pinched her aching hand to make sure she had not fallen asleep. She grimaced, falling back on her feet, feeling rejected and confused – not a dream at all.

_A circus!_

He reached for her wrist which she had been shielding against her chest after the magical bindings had dissolved. Cooing softly, when she made an attempt to repel him, he lifted it against his lips and blew on it.

‘You dance beautifully,’ he said. ‘Relentlessly, you dance for the beginnings that one starts to miss long before the end.’

Ciri snorted and was about to say something acutely acidic, but the elf wasn’t done.

‘You with whom the world has so often treated cruelly. Viciously, until you yourself retaliate with equal ferocity. Without allowing a moment’s relief for discovering what brings you joy or for what keeps you awake at peaceful nights when dreams are easy to touch and feel soft as down feathers. Many in whom you’ve sought comfort, many who’ve claimed to love you, have hurt you. Without care for what brings you pleasure. And without patience to recognize how willingly you will learn and how quickly and completely you throw your lot in with good causes – if only shown kindness and understanding. A little love, Ciri.’

She did not know why her eyes had begun to prickle with tears; she just knew the tears were angry and yet, not entirely. It seemed that they couldn’t be one simple thing, however much she wished they could. And it hurt a lot more that way.

_He doesn’t have the right to talk to me like this._

‘I enjoyed our dance earlier very much,’ he said quietly. ‘My child of destiny, you always prepare for the worst, yet are still ever eager to rely on moments’ fleeting blessings all the same. You desire to lose yourself in your archipelago of moments, knowing how impossible it really is for you. And so, you’ve learned to seek your freedom in the erasure of yourself, though aware of the acute loneliness that greets you every time you try. Now you will try the same with me, yet I cannot allow this to happen. Will you believe me if I say it is for your own good? Do you understand how important it is that you do not lose yourself in our dance, in the night? No matter what I do.’

Why was he saying these things to her? Why did he pull at her only to spit her back out – to... to what? Lecture? Negotiate? Ponder!?

Her gaze fell on the state of the sealed-off accommodation: the signs of an explosion and a fire, the smashed glass, the red on the floor. The red she had put there in her self-abandonment, he had waded through, and they had danced in together before the elf had held her away from it inside a mirage of peace. How simple and effective, and how stupidly she had fallen for it. Avallac’h was still himself; as if he had not contributed gallons of pain and blood in the name of saving what was dear to him.

Why did he care why she did what she did?

Shouldn’t he have been delighted to get this chance to rendezvous with his dead love? No matter that a meagre and poor copy. He would still get what he wanted – Ciri knew what it was. She had always known, somehow. After having been forced to spend so long together, after having born the weight of his strange looks and moods, the knowledge had solidified. She was aware this arrangement, this _retreat_ , did not come for free – nothing ever did. Did he still think her stupid enough to not know that things were often not how they seemed? That Ciri could not really be happy and he could not be free, and hell, that even vice versa it held true, didn’t it? Why did he have to ruin for her the fantasy that the opposite could also be true, if only for a night?

A little love? She didn’t need love.

She wanted to see that self-forgetful, raw emotion in his eyes again and to feel him tugging at her hair until it hurt. She wanted his lips to spill the truth inside her mouth, mocking and bitter, and then take from her until her debt had been paid. She was so tired of being unable to either claim her freedom or disappear forever. More so, of being denied even a moment’s possibility to imagine.

Avallac’h drew her forward and embraced her. Ciri heard his heart beating in his chest, as fast and powerful as before, and not slowing down despite his mercurial change of manner just then. His hands, she realised, were shaking.

Her tears of wrath quickly ran dry against his robes.

‘This is not how I want you to see me. This is not who I wish to be for you. Believe me. You do not know nor want to know what I want, but one day I will tell you. I promise,’ he kissed the crown of her head softly, his voice changing. ‘Sweet girl, you deserve so much. Allow me to show you!’

Before Ciri could realise what was happening, the elf had clasped her around the waist and lifted her up like a sheaf. The world spun. She could only squeak when, in a couple of long steps, he had moved them both across the room with ease. In his arms she weighed as little as a kitten – as when she had first discovered this, it still infuriated her. Ciri thought she heard the Sage give a short laugh and glared.

He sat her down on the edge of a large round table.

Then something pale flashed in the corner of her eye; a doily? Where he had produced it from, Ciri had no idea.

‘Are you laying the table?’ she asked when he set it down behind her.

The sorcerer’s eyes widened briefly. Quaint and disorientating – perhaps that alone had been the point? Slowly and deliberately, he loosened the silver hasp of his collar and began removing his belt, indicating for her to do the same. He was in no hurry and smiled easily at her. Ciri swallowed. Her fingers clenched and her heart beat faster. If only she had not smashed that bottle earlier...

Desiring to watch and let the distance grow between herself and the woman whose shoes she had decided to wear tonight, she began only once the elf stopped half-way through, having revealed inked skin underneath the enchanted fabric. Avoiding his searching eyes, she touched him curiously, thinking, of a sudden, about everything.

A finger tipped her chin.

 _‘_ Come then. _’_

She sought his mouth.

Questions fled.

Throughout, he kept threading his fingers softly through her hair, discarding the pins and letting the ashen locks fall over her collarbones. Until it became all undone. She stretched her arms out over her head – the shirt fell on the floor – and caught him admiring. The work of his hands? The past? The present?

_...me?_

_Why is it me?_

For a moment she thought she saw infinite tenderness in his pale eyes, though it may have also been the dark, the poor lighting, or her own wishful thinking. In the shards of broken mirrors, who knew what really was and what wasn’t?

_To hell with it!_

Ciri pressed her lips against the elf’s chin, against his face, against the sharp curve of his ear, listening for the sharp intake of breath and enjoying the twinge it sent between her legs. She drew him onto her, letting warm palms undo the rest. _What if we never leave? We could simply stay – here, at the end of the world._ Then she would rather act; wrongly or rightly, may that be revealed later. Lean, yet well-built, he ran hot against her front, bending over her and spreading her thighs. She remembered having forgotten herself and having let her eyes wander over the stretch of his shoulders in a different world, when he hadn’t been aware. Or if he had, he had not minded – Ciri had discovered quickly that very little embarrassed the elf, despite his enduring, snide reproval of her manners. _He had not minded enough to call me on it or... Hypocrite!_ Yet even so, the prospect of being able to uncover something he would rather wish to hide excited her. Everything buzzed once more and the rain could not put out the fires. Offering her belly, her ribs, her hips and her chest, she arched, letting her head fall back, and gave herself over to the cool night air.

Distant lights of the alien city blurred in her eyes.

_A moment’s fleeting blessings... an archipelago of moments._

A wet kiss slipped down the side of her neck, wrapping around the beat of her heart, sucking her flesh into a hungry, waiting mouth. She felt her breast being taken into the palm of his hand, weighed and squeezed carefully and, if she hadn’t shivered uncontrollably just then, she would have thought also somewhat clinically. Ciri jerked back, pushing at his hands and pursing her lips against the desire to sigh, to make noise. Goose bumps ran along her limbs and she ignored them exactly like she defied the touch that stroked her back from top to bottom, circling the lines of her spine, waist, and hips. A touch that slipped in-between the waistband, shifting her trousers aside, and pulled her toward him – until she could feel the elf’s desire and realised once more how deceptive her perception of him could be.

Her breath soughed as fingers dipped into the heat that had flooded between her legs.

‘That's it, my dear.’ He kissed her slowly. ‘Just so.’

She fought to retain hold over the faceless and the nameless – the familiar. With her eyes closed, she managed to imagine for a moment that the shameless touch stirring her pleasure had appeared at her own beckoning. That this night would not be that different from the many nights before when she had let go. When she had succumbed to the desire to touch and be touched, to see, but above all else, to be seen, and had thus brought herself joy. Ultimately always alone in the end.

A tiny vibration passed through the sensitive tissue, inviting her to lift her hips toward the fingers that infiltrated between her lips without hindrance. A touch of magic. Her eyes flew open, her hands seeking to ground herself against the convulsion that shot through her.

‘Too much?’

Avallac’h was watching her peacefully, almost as if in a trance, the corner of his mouth tugging slightly at meeting her gaze. Probing, teasing – charting her, with practice. She could hear herself lap against his long fingers. Scraping heat rose inside her chest, flooding her neck and cheeks, mingling with fleeting irritation.

‘A little.’

Another lighter wave followed. Every charged brush seemed to attune seamlessly with the intensity of the emotion that prevailed in her imagination at the moment and gradually, he eased her into a comfortable rhythm of slow torture that nurtured her arousal on a knife’s edge.

_And if he takes hold of my soul – what for?_

It felt good. That was all. Closing her eyes, Ciri tried to follow the sensations inside that she knew led her somewhere familiar and safe – to a kind of home within herself. It was a fragile construction, made of star silences and ceaseless movement, of leavings and returns. It was fleeting, and every time she arrived there she re-arranged it just in case, though she loved it always – she loved living, moving, and leaving behind shards of her intoxicated heart. Perhaps somewhere, sometime, they’d take root and call her back.

He encircled her by the waist, dipping her off-balance onto white lace and she felt a single finger penetrate her; followed, shortly after, by another. Caressing adoringly.

_‘You deserve so much.’_

Soft laughter escaped the woman’s lips and flew off, into the night.

Crevan relished the sensation of her mouth filling with saliva, her sparkling laughter withdrawing inside her when he instructed the tide to recede once more. Tiny eruptions sprinkled the steady rise and fall of the curve of her chest, raising little hair on lambent skin and making her fingers clench around his bicep. It did strange things to his mind, witnessing her be this keen and receptive. How quickly she filled up with desirous, nervous energy that made her burn like a copper sparkler! Magic, which the girl stubbornly claimed to have forsaken, rushed under her perspiring skin, sweet and electric against his tongue. The sorcery of the Alders.

The elf decided this was not nearly enough for him. Or her.

He leaned over her breasts, kissing and biting gently and savouring the flavour that was unmistakably hers, while attempting to quell the childish disappointment that bothered him eternally – like a disgusting little horsefly. She was... different than he remembered. How so? He knew her. Perhaps he simply needed to take a closer look? Patiently, one at a time, he nudged the rise of her nipples with his tongue, smiling and stopping his fingers deep within her when she gave a drawn out moan, full of need, trembling so hard he had to press down on her for restraint.

‘Avallac’h...’

_Why do you give yourself to men? Why do you love them so much? Men, who do not love you, or care about your sacrifices. Men, who defile, destroy, and forget even their own._

‘Please, will you just... help –’

The elf didn’t listen to the end of her plea, instead hearing in his head the words uttered centuries ago. Doleful, harsh, cruel words that had ended in fire. He couldn’t convince her back then. Withdrawing and ridding her of breeches entirely, he pushed himself down, leaving a trail of kisses along the honed curve of her abdomen until his hands settled on her hips and he came above her aching centre. He heard his own heart beating then and, running his hands under her hips, squeezing and lifting her toward him, he gave the Swallow a small kiss. One. On the slick softness of her flowering lips.

_Will you stay this time? Will you stay forever? Will you cross the great divide? Back to us. Back to me._

She gave a stifled lament, and became very still.

Reigning in his breathing and heart, he bestowed small kisses on the insides of her thighs, tasting her core a little at a time to remind and reassure that he would not neglect her. He would be so very good to her – he would help her find her way. For a moment, his eyes lingered on the rose tattoo that looked out of place somehow, until he recalled the blond-haired girl she did not want to talk about with him, though she often remembered her – sadly, with a complicated sense of longing.

_Is your poison that different from mine?_

Her eyes, he saw, had opened, but she wasn’t availing him of their beauty; blinking rapidly and gazing off into distance, at the far-off lights of the world of artificers around them. Their “new home” where might had draped itself in the appearance of magic. She liked it here, of course. So ugly and fake and... at liberty – to call itself whatever it wanted. So below them both, and yet –

A lot like this rose.

He was no common butcher, bandit, or cur, yet a part of Crevan wanted to rip down the veneer of this illusion of freedom she had been building in secret and crush it under his heels alongside the artificiality this world infected her with. Part of him, however, liked to watch hope kindling in her, even if it risked dragging her away from him one day.

_Into the arms of the faceless and the nameless, the unknowing, who run their tongues with banal promises of happiness that they cannot bring and that will not stay._

_Who comb your beautiful hair in admiration of their own nerve and prowess after having you – once, twice, as many times as you like; when they should be kissing your feet as you pass._

Her back arched, her hands snuck into his hair, and she pulled. Brushing aside the indignation – the jealousy! – in his heart, the elf pushed inside her with his tongue: his dancing swallow, precious and sweet, the first of spring, abandoned in his hands.

_Dance for me!_

Hungry for her taste, he kissed her intensely and attentively, completing what his fingers had begun. Warmth rolled off her in waves as her thighs strained against his hold, her body spasming, and her voice breaking into ever tenderer whimpers. Calmly, he let her drive herself against his face, smearing him as he suckled and kept swallowing her quivers, one after another, until she fell back against lace covers on chrome, pulsing, sweaty and so very soft.

_Dance, Zireael – ensnared in Time’s cold cathedral. Like taking scissors to the skies, your flight slits through fear._

Climbing onto the table he lifted her legs onto his shoulders, not caring at all to let her go yet. Continuing to caress her warm and thirsty flesh with his tongue, Crevan laughed lightly when she complained, her voice small and dissolute and cracking under the weight of her own desire. Her young and ardent body intoxicated him, and he had never denied being greedy. He wanted more of her honesty and delightful agony, and, feeling the familiar press of desire in his groin, he wanted to feel what it would be like to get inside her tonight.

If it were to end in fire, let it all burn down at once – wasn’t this her philosophy?

Again she trembled, murmuring his name in the way he liked to hear it, straining and struggling until she had finally wrung herself out of his hands. Let that be that then. He licked his lips, breathing heavily, and felt, for the first time in a long time, utterly undone. Leaning over, he looked on her heaving shape: her long ashen-hair spread around her head like a halo. His beautiful, scarred nightmare. _Would you like me to show you how you appear in my dreams? A moment, Zireael. I will, in a moment._ Looking for her mouth, he shifted a lock behind her ear – her round ear, hidden in ash.

_Do you see this, Lara, my love?_

He gathered her in his arms. Glass crunched under his boots.

_What madness! Do you see what exquisite punishment fate delivers on me? On your behalf._

‘Did you like it?’ he whispered, cradling her. ‘How do you feel? Do not be shy and tell me.’

But Zireael did not appear to share in his elation, her gaze lost somewhere he could not follow. She gave a thoughtful smile, resting her arms around his neck. Not embarrassed at all at tasting herself off his lips, it seemed.

‘What is it? Hm?’ he touched her nose. ‘Talk to me.’

Small, impassioned, and alive.

_Alive!_

If she had asked anything of him right now...

‘Zireael?’

‘It’s nothing. I just –’

Who knows what she would have told him in the end. When he linked their minds, he almost dropped her due to witnessing the contrast between what she was thinking and what she, in fact, did - the heat of her action, the coolness of her thought.

_‘– would like a rest... yet you call me irresponsible for wishing for it. Always in conflict, always between two worlds – I would like to be at peace one day. To choose a nook, make a final choice – my own...’_

Running her tongue along his index finger, she sucked him into her mouth, observing him with languid, evil eyes. She didn’t like it when he read her, but to his credit he kept his violations discreet, and thus rarely dismayed her.

‘ _Me en'ca minne,_ please...’

‘What?’

‘If you insist like this –’

‘Will you come?’ her eyes narrowed enchantingly. ‘On top of me?’

Crevan may have laughed, or groaned, but then she had placed her hand against his chest and he had obeyed, lost in the boreal greens that defied time and hatred and death; that coalesced above and beyond, in the archipelago of moments, and laughed at him from beyond the grave.

Falling back onto a couch the elf pulled the girl into his lap and hugged her until she squirmed under his hands. Her lips, shameless and burnt with love, moved against his with sweet timidity, devoid of the swagger she wore on herself like a shield at all times against further hurt and abandonment. The tenderness this instilled in his heart aroused him tremendously. He imagined clasping her wrists together and tying them with a gentle, secure knot, and also finding something for her calves... silk, scarves – anything that would not intimidate, that would set her at ease with him. It had to feel as soft as herself. But he would make the bindings firm to ensure she would not fly off, that she would struggle while in his power, feeling safe and adored, until white, hot pleasure had claimed her – repeatedly. Because once would have hardly sufficed; he never taught half-heartedly.

_Until you will open your wounds, and make them a garden._

Listening carefully – to her heart, his own, to time and the ghosts – he pressed her close, and penetrated her.

‘A-ah! Slower-slower...’

‘Shh-shh-shh, it’s alright.’

‘It hurts a little.’

‘It’s alright,’ he rasped, slowing, eyes dark with desire. ‘It’ll be alright. I’m sorry. I could wait no longer.’

Yet his movement elicited another contorted sob from her and it gnawed on his soul like dry ice how she sought to subdue it. Touching her soaked inner lips with his fingers, the elf rubbed softly where he'd entered her. What exquisite pain ate at him below the kidneys – she was so narrow, so wet and hot. For him and only him _..._ Tonight and always _. Isn’t that right, my beautiful girl? Only for me._ For a while, he thus tried to soothe her, caressing her with his hands and tongue, despite everything in him boiling and cracking with frightful hunger. His little Swallow demanded gentleness and deserved all the care and patience he could extend her. He had given his word.

_What will we do to each other? What will we become?_

At the touch of his magic the girl yelped and stared.

He felt very happy.

‘After you.’

Aided along by soothing touch, the witcheress sunk on him slowly while he watched, like an artist appreciating his creation. Her tangled hair stuck to her neck, her lips parting for a wail that faded into an indulgent sigh as she allowed him inside, little by little. Dripping on him, sticky, sweet. Her thighs hugging his sides. Her fingers spreading across his chest, touching down on his heartbeat. And though he couldn’t help looking inside her thoughts out of caution and habit, he needn’t have. Every anxiety, bliss, and sensation revealed itself at once, and the elf struggled at the sight of pliant flesh stretching around his length, swallowing him and his sanity whole.

Perhaps he should have let her go, but could he really?

In daytime, nothing would have been easier – it sufficed to press on her unrefined soft spots, of which she had many, and the illusion Crevan laboured under would have instantly shattered into so many smithereens. Now? Now he wished to drive her to exhaustion, until she whimpered brokenly and begged him, until she cooed in her sleep, sweaty, found and taken care of, and wrapped tightly around him. Not once considering leaving him.

He realised the enchantment wielding its power over him. It had begun working on him long before her birth, turning into a compulsion when he had met her, and into an addiction when he had first felt acute anger pierce him over the thought of someone else’s hands touching her. So long ago it now seemed, when she had been to Tir ná Lia. He had understood nothing at the time, yet he had understood one thing that applied equally now as it had long ago: he had never been free to choose. And neither had she.

The honeyed warmth of her womb enveloped him, dragging him in a spiralling descent that dizzied and revealed. No more discomfort or regret on her face; only self-abandonment and delicious distress. He wound his fingers in her hair and tore her neck back, disrupting the pace she had chosen – more comfortable for her than him – and, when she was able, she paid him back in kind with her teeth. An animal and an angel. His black diamond who tames the night itself and makes it dance to her tune. The thought ate at his spirit, his will, his heart, and he groaned into her mouth. Greedily, her hips rolled in tandem with his, her skin gleaming with effort, until the pleading, distressed sounds gushing from her lips began losing their coherence, becoming increasingly vulnerable as she continued to sit on him.

_Good girl. Trust me. Take from me. What took you so long? What kept you?_

Over and over, he squeezed into the ardent body. And when exhaustion began settling in the woman’s thighs, he seized her around the waist and slid on top of her, penetrating to the end. Feeling her arch her back he regretted only that he could not keep gazing freely at the desperation building inside haunting eyes. He would have liked to linger, to take her slowly. Have her crumple the sheets in exasperation and experience the torture Crevan had felt every time she had innocuously coiled around him during their travels. Yet, he did not dare to tempt fate again.

‘My sweet child. My joy, my darling... I waited for you. So long, I waited,’ he murmured in-between thrusts. ‘How I missed you. Terribly. How I searched – now you will stay. Won’t you, my love? You will stay, for Dana help me, how I do not want to let you go... never, Ciri... never again...’

_Make your final choice. Want what I want. Stay..._

When he changed the angle and she moaned around the fingers between her lips, he wondered if uncovering his secret felt worth it to her yet. _You cannot run away from knowledge, Swallow, once you decide to pursue it._ When she attempted to stretch out her spine, away from him – in opposite to how he guided them – the sorcerer sunk on her small form and drew her tightly against himself, denying her all reprieve. _It always comes – at a price._

‘Give me your word, _luned_. Promise me, you will stay.'

‘You’ll have to put a spell on me. Make me.’

He ground against her, desperation and anger choking him once more at her thoughtlessness. It hurt her.

Fingers gripping hair – his, hers – hot breath against the temple – his – an arm squeezing around the ribcage, leaving red welts behind on pale skin – hers.

It hurt him. Her childish flippancy. She should not invite him, tempt him. She didn't know he would pull her very soul from her to ensure she stayed.

Faintly though, he then heard the girl speak.

‘Don't lose me. Don’t leave... please. Don’t leave me alone again.’

And Crevan promised. He would see her through to the ends of her earth, where only oblivion yawned. Like a yellowed aspen leaf, he felt her writhe in distress, trying to recede into herself and away from the promise shared with her, and he refused to let her leave.

‘Look at me. Open your eyes and look at me!’

‘More.’

He bowed before her wish. Bending his back, he leaned his forehead against hers and kissed away the salty wetness beside her beautiful eyes. _No pain, little one._ She’ll never be alone again. He’ll fill her. He’ll make her see what he sees. She’s something more. Feeling her buck fruitlessly against his hips as she convulsed around him, he revelled in the trembling contractions that pulled him deeper into the secret warmth of her – where innocence lay. He would not allow her to fly away. He would not have time repeat itself in vicious recurrence when hope had finally bared itself on the palm of his hand.

_Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive..._

Her eyes, when she opened them again, were pure witch fire.

His restraint broke.

Overcome by a need that terrified him, he loosened his hold around her to move faster and deeper into warm flesh, deaf and blind, uncaring of her quivering. What he told her then was at once mellifluous and obscene. Her skin stuck to his, the smell and feel of her sucking onto his every thought, every memory like a vicious leech and he felt as if imprinting onto the face of a bold human girl with beautiful emerald eyes, intersected by a scar on her cheek. No other, just her. Just her... his Swallow, the first of spring.

He crashed on top of her, pouring into her at the end of his lust.

At some indeterminate point in time, the elf stirred – to the curious absence of the patter of rain, as it were. Shifting, he felt his seed spill out of a cooled body and Ciri gave a quiet moan, tightening around him imperceptibly. He looked at her for a long time.

Then he extracted himself from night’s embrace, gathered the woman against him, and got up.

\---//---

Avallac’h stirred the concoction one last time – with a straw in the shape of a giraffe, because the kitchen, to his great misfortune, had been wiped out by the fire, and thus this novelty lab had to do. He had remembered too late how asinine this half-baked alchemy was – after he had already prepared two thirds of his precious ingredients. He didn’t have to waste resources when there already were alternatives in this post-biological nightmare. It served as some amusement to him that humans in this world had taken to contraception out of sheer hedonism, yet it didn’t quite make up for the daze in which he operated this morning.

Incinerating the straw and wiping the surface of the round table, the elf pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. His gaze fell on a broken piece of simulacrum tech in the corner. Mechanical thought patterns were what stood between humans and paradise.

What he'd gotten up for had also been... mechanical.

They were on the run. The timing wasn’t right: the roots between them were still shallow, and her trust in him fragile, to be nurtured at all cost. The fabric of the fate he had foreseen was delicate, and this time he wanted to be absolutely sure.

And yet...

_‘What if we never leave? We could simply stay – here, at the end of the world.’_

There were many spheres, many times and places, moments through which fate branched, forked, and twisted.

Crevan covered the cup with a saucer, left it, and went to wake the Swallow, walking across the shards of a broken mirror barely a quarter of a year old. He wanted to take another look and think. Before what was meant next...


End file.
